Good lord. Looks like the "Straight Talk Express" has driven straight over the cliff. But nobody has managed to tell McCain yet. Not even McCain. And to think I might have once considered voting for this guy...

(On an unrelated note: Working on a number of things today, so posting has been light. Reading with interest, however, the outpouring of reaction and comments from BRAD BLOG readers to the Tasering Incident. Let's call those comments "recommend reading" for the moment, as most are quite thought provoking. I may have more of my own thoughts on it all later...)

There is no doubt that power corrupts and that those corrupted by it are generally unaware of it or are in denial of it.

McCain was the first Betraeus who went to Baghdad to tell us how great things are going there.

Deceivers out deceiving others and in the process being deceived themselves.

One does not have to look deep to see blog deceit. Drudge has a headline "Senate Blocks Bill on Iraq Combat Tours", but RawStory tells it straight with this headline "GOP blocks Webb amendment".

McCain has become one of the worst offenders. Yesterday he voted with the neoCons to filibuster the Webb amendment to prevent soldiers from being deployed back to Iraq without adequate rest first.

It is so a la Rummy "You go to war with the army you have" ... but should be "you go to war with the army you just ruined by breaking up their families, making sure they get PTSS, make them suffer psychologically, and put them where they are likely to kill women and children", all for the glory of preznit blush.

Reminds me of RLM, who once upon a time blogged here: "I can't believe I voted for George Bush". The deceit these daze is really, really strong.

Thanks for posting this video. It's amazing what a roomful of political news geeks at TPM can put together.

McCain clearly needs to be put out to pasture. He asked all those questions at that hearing, and then sat back and, instead of listening to Petraeus' answers, just reread his own notes.

Here's what jumps out at me from this video. The military is telling the civilian goonsquad at the WH and at the Pentagon that diplomacy has to precede any diminishing of the violence in Iraq. Then, the civilian goonsquad turns around and tells the American people and the media that the violence in Iraq must be diminished using military force before diplomacy can take place.

Nobody's listening to the military, and the military is not in the position of telling the goonsquad they've got it ass-backwards.

So the American people are telling their Congress to take various measures to make the goonsquad either pay attention or get out of there and make room for a different squad to run things, a squad that will actually heed the advice of the military.

So instead of doing that, Congress actually spends its time discussing and then censoring (or whatever it is they did) MoveOn.